This study examines periods, characteristics, activities, and the significance of the 60 years The Little Angels, a Korean children’s performing arts troupe. The research was conducted through a literature survey, the review of primary data including concert programs, newspapers, films, and interviews with key informants. The troupe formulated members, management, and repertoires during its ‘Formulated Period,’ In its ‘Cultural Ambassador Period’ in the context of the International Cold War and nation-building, the troupe played its role as a cultural ambassador with the mission to dispatch Korean culture to the “free world,” beginning with the US, then Europe, Asia, and South America. In the ’Private Troupe Transition Period’ of the 1980s, the troupe focused on domestic rather than overseas activities, yet performed at major events like the Seoul Olympic Games. After 1991, during its ‘Peace Delegation Period,’ the troupe again concentrated on overseas performances in the post-Cold War context and toured the USSR, North Korea, China, and UN nations that participated in the Korean War. This study examines The Little Angels unique position and provides a rich and multi-dimensional views of contemporary Korean performing arts history as created by the intersection of global and Korean concerns.

Wu XiaoBang new dance art aesthetic thought is examined in this paper in order to shed light on the significance of revolution and progress. XiaoBang critically adapted both western romantic ballet and German expressionist dance, and developed the essence of Chinese classical culture. He proposed a new dance art in accordance with aesthetic in the new era of China. Based on a literature review, this study analyzed the aesthetic thought of new dance art from four aspects: dance performance, dance creation, dance education and dance theory. Research papers on new dance art, one-line books and critical essays are used to analyze the development history of modern dance in China and to understand the formation and development of new dance art. In summarizing Wu XiaoBang formation and development of new dance art aesthetics, this research makes a significant contribution to the development of dance discipline and training principles.

This study explored the case of creating and performing “Suncheon Bird Flower Dance: Hooded Crane Meets Flower” by adapting the story of a hooded crane in Suncheon. The researchers obtained the following results by collecting and qualitatively analyzing choreography notes, photos, videos, memos, dialogues and performance pamphlets from August to November 2021. First, from the point of view of ecological art, we carried out choreography work for flower dance and hooded crane gestures based on sympathetic movements. Second, it revealed the convergent aspects of performance characteristics especially by using the photos of the hooded cranes in accordance with the live music performance for the scenery of Suncheon Bay and adopting a tea ceremony performance. Third, to implement the proposed creative crane dance, this case showed the transformation process of traditional Hakyeonhwadaemu in the scenes where the hooded crane meets and hangs out with a flower girl (woman) who is blooming and becoming a lotus flower.

This study explores the primary issues in international performing arts exchange in the post-COVID-19 era. In our in-depth interviews with dance artists, each with over eight years of experience in international exchange before and after the pandemic, we witnessed the challenges and opportunities posed by the current pandemic situation. We used phenomenological methods to analyze the interview data. Our analysis revealed four problems: (1) the gap between live performance and recorded online performance; (2) the lack of equitable collaboration between artists and arts administrators; (3) the lack of diverse approaches and forms of support; and (4) the increase in barriers to international performing arts exchange. Our findings suggest countermeasures, such as: (1) balanced support both for live performance and online performance; (2) more flexible communication between artists and administrators; (3) adoption of more diverse and creative modes of international exchange; and (4) provision of training and education to promote artists’ access to and mobility in international artistic exchange.

This paper investigated the theme ‘creation’ with the focus on the Korean traditional dances. At first, the problems in the creation of existing Korean dances were analyzed. Through the analysis, the creative factors lacking in individual characteristics were presented and the introduction of the western-oriented concept of creation was critically examined. On the basis of the awareness on the difference of artistic concept between eastern and western world, the concept of creation was discussed in the transmission history of dances. Next, the frame of reference for the creation of the traditional dance was presented. It includes the formation of lines and surfaces through principle of circulation, the formation of dance styles based on the traditional breath method, the approach to interpret rhythms and the application of steps. In conclusion, the events inducing the creation of traditional dances were identified and presented in the ancient literature.

This research is about the performances of Korean immigrant art troupe, from Russia’s Vladivostok maritime province (Yonhaeju : Prismorsky Krai), that visited Korea in the early 1920s. Initially the performances aimed to raise funds to build churches and help Koreans in Russia suffering from economic difficulties due to prolonged droughts and the civil war in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. However, the performances gained nationwide popularity, introducing Western folk music and dancing to Korea, which became the driving force in spreading a dance craze throughout the country. These performances significantly influenced the history of Korean modern dance, best exemplified by Cho Taek-Won who was first introduced to modern dance by the troupe’s performances and who became one of three new dance (Shinmuyong) pioneers. It is rare in the field of Diaspora Studies that cultural influences come from the outside the mother country, as in the case of the Korean-Russian art troupe. This research, from the perspective of the Diaspora (in the socio-cultural context of the troupe as they were caught between Russia’s civil war, in the period after the 1917 Revolution through 1922, and Korea under occupation by imperial Japan) shows the characteristics and meaning of the performances on the history of Korean modern dance, through analysis of performance activities and structures, member composition, the role of major leaders, and the troupe’s repertory of performances. At the same time, this study provides a foundation to understand the Korean Diaspora in Russia Like Lee Kang, Han Yong-Hun and Kwak Byuing-Gyu, the leaders of the Korean art troupe in Russia were leaders of the religious community who had participated in the Korean Independence Movement in the maritime province of Russia. Most of them were non-professionals and each group had a small number of members. Their art form followed “Estrada,” a typical people’s performing art which were popular folk dance touring performances in Russia at the time. In the history of modern dance in Korea, the significance of the performances of the Korean immigrant art troupe from Russia is as follows. First, as the initial overseas Korean performing arts group, they inspired Koreans to pay attention to the problems of overseas Koreans through the promotion of their visit to Korea; they helped build a national identity across borders. Secondly, this art troupe, as part of the Korean Diaspora, became a cultural bridge between people in Korea and Koreans in Russia. Lastly, the art troupe supported the Korean Independence Movement. However, the performances were forced to stop, for political reasons, by the birth of the Soviet Union on December 30, 1922. Research methods include literature and library research, field surveys, including existing literature in the National Russian Library of East Asian Literature, materials made from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs kept in the National Institute of Korean History, Dong-A Ilbo, Mae-il Shinnbo, and Sunbong, the Korean newspaper published in the maritime province of Russia.

This study is to trace the fundamental structure of how PKIP, which was developed by Anna Halprin, a dance educator, artist and the founder of Tamalpa Institute, is experienced by dancers. For this, we have searched the background in which PKIP was created and its work structure and executed a qualitative research on dancers’ experiences. Five professional dancers with their experiences of more than ten years in dancing and over six months in PKIP were selected as study participants. The study participants’ experiences through PKIP were divided into three main topics i.e. the penetrability among media, images as the inner teacher of creativity and the creative transformation of emotions and again, each main topic could be divided into two sub-topics. Through PKIP, the study participants experienced the whole system where they realized that their movements generated interactions between the inner images coming across the dancers’ minds and the outer images in drawings or poetic languages, and through these interactions, they came in and out of two or three different art media’s areas freely and let the media’s influences inter-penetrate each other. Also, they found out images were activated as their inner teachers of creativity. Through PKIP, they discovered the inner tensioned voices commenting on their own movements and could realize that creativity which they have as dancers expanded as they trusted their subjective images. Lastly, the study participants confronted their emotions in a different way from the ones they experienced in general dance performances and this became the resources for their new, good-quality dances, and also PKIP provided each of them with an important private area that the participants might have as dancers because PKIP dealt with their emotions just directly; the participants perceived all these they experienced as their importance experiences.

This study is on the eco-art from two dimensions, intentional and unintentional. As the cases of unintentional eco-art, the summer and winter ceremonies of Kwakiutl on west of Canada, written by Eric Wolf, and the winter ceremony Smila(Spiritual Dance) and related dances of Chehalis Indian Band are being considered. Unintentional conceptualization and realization as eco-art are investigated. The other one is on the intentional trials in contemporary societies for the integration of ecology and art. Cases of ‘performing nature’ are interpreted. Maehyang ceremony in Muan-gun tidal flat and related dance are considered. Rituals of Kwakiutl and Chehalis tell dances, as essences of rituals and as the subjects of expressions and communications, exist. The dances exist as the arts realizing relations between natural beings and human beings, realizing the transformation of natural beings, of human beings, of relations between human beings. Ecological relation between nature and man are realized from the immediate feeling and perception of bodily experience. The meanings of the relation are also produced from the feeling and perception. The term and concept of eco-art do not exist in these rituals. But realizing process of ecological relation and interaction is also the one of eco-art unintentionally. Body and dance are main subject and mediate of the process. Recently eco-art, the term has been used by some scholars and artists. But, in many cases the term is not used actually realizing eco-art. Some trials of modern art as ‘performing nature’, Maehyang ritual and dance as reinvented one composed of partial ideas from trasitional one are those realizing the issues and ideologies intentionally. As common phenomena in the two dimensions eco-art expresses ecological ‘relations’, not merely depicting nature. Commonly too, materiality of body and things on nature and human life, feelings and perception of them form the ecological relation.

The purpose of this study is to shed light on the artistry of choreographed by Kim, Baek-Bong from the view of ‘artistic beauty’ of G. W. F. Hegel. Since the first performance in 1959 at Won Kak Sa, has been transmitted and performed by her students. It has been performed for 6 minutes and 30 minutes; the order of compositions of the music for this performance is Jungmori in 10 beat, Jungjungmori in 12 beat, Jajinmori in 14 beat, and Hwimori in 70 beat; it starts with a slow tempo and gradually develops to a fast tempo. According to Hegel, ‘content’ and ‘form’ are the material components actualizing the art in the real world. The ‘content’, the expression of artist’s identity, consists of ‘Phantasie’, ‘Begeisterung’, and ‘Talent’, and the ‘form’, the method for logical expression of content’ consist of ‘Manier’, ‘Stil’, and ‘Originalität’. The content of is appeared through the creative imagination by natural subjects, snow crystal and cocoon, the inspiration consisting of internal motive, large flakes, and external motive, the necessity of designing a new work, and the unique capability(genius) for choreographing a group dance such as the number and positions of dancers and structural changes by musical and spatial compositions. The form of is appeared by the changes in linear form. The straight lines and curves in the work reveal the traditional patterns of group dances. Those lines secure the external formality through regularity, symmetry, and generality. Also, the uniqueness of is shown by the critical essays good at integrating and proposing the identity and characteristics of the work displayed at the title of this study. This study assures that is not only a performing art with good aesthetic content and form for artistic beauty but also a piece of art with educational value, as well as discovers the spirit of artist deep under its external splendor.

This study examines the trends related to dance as a performance art during the early period of the Soviet Union, a time in which art was broadly used for public enlightenment, the promotion of socialist ideology, and national integration and establishment in the 1920s and 1930s. Dance in this period will be investigated with the aim of determining who produced and appreciated dance performance, the format and genre of the dance performances, and the themes and contents of the performances. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, efforts were made to develop a new form of art that would be appreciated and accepted by Soviet people from various social classes and would help to lead the newly born country, based on Lenin’s idea of popularizing art for the general public. It was a critical period that shaped the characteristics, format, and direction of performing arts in the Soviet Union. In looking at this period, three phenomena stand out. First, ordinary people emerged as both producers and viewers of the performing arts, and an amateur performing arts group (Soin Yesuldan) became popular. Second, Estrada and folk dance became popular during this period among the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural people of the Soviet Union, which greatly influenced the birth of a folk dance company with ballet choreographers. Third, at a meeting of the Pan-Soviet Writers Alliance held in 1934, Gor’kii M. declared that socialist realism should be the principle for creating Soviet art. Subsequently, young Soviet ballet masters developed new forms of ballet in which the themes and contents were in accord with the government agenda. Dance as a performing art in the early period of the Soviet Union greatly influenced not only the art movements in other socialist countries but also Minjok and Minjung chum in Korea in the 1980s and 1990s. In this regard, future research should investigate how dance formats and characteristics from the Soviet Union have been accommodated and reflected in Korean Minjok and Minjung chum.